How to Stay Out of Credit Card Debt for Good
Credit card debt is an epidemic. It doesn’t spare any race or gender, and it doesn’t necessarily target those of a specific income bracket. And, if anything, the shrinking of our world has made it worse; now we can get on our computers and order items a world away in a heartbeat. Many of us do just that, whether we really need the item or not.
Sure, there have always been people who lived beyond their means, but credit cards make it easy. Somehow, handing over a plastic card lets us feel less responsibility than handing over cash. And in any event, credit cards, unlike cash, let us spend money we don’t have with no immediate consequences.
What can we do about it? There are ways to get out of credit card debt: saving and paying off cards, consolidating, lifestyle changes. They aren’t always easy, but you can do them. The real question is why we keep getting in so deep in the first place. Is there something fundamentally wrong with us? Are we just programmed to be irresponsible? Perhaps in a few cases, but that’s not the case for the majority.
Debt = Life
One problem is that debt is simply an integral part of our lives. We take out loans to get through school, buy a car, buy a house or remodel a house. You can have a payment plan on your appliances, your furniture, your electronics. We have gotten accustomed to having now and paying later. It’s an instant gratification world. And we are used to it because it’s all around us, but credit cards are different. Interest rates on credit cards are often extraordinarily high, and unlike other types of debt, making the minimum payment may not actually get you out.
Emergency Credit Card Use
Sometimes we find ourselves spending money that we know we don’t have on plastic, because we feel we have to. After all, what are you going to do if your car breaks down? You have to get to work, so if you don’t have the cash to fix it, you may put it on a card. Your computer crashes, and you can’t imagine trying to navigate modern life without it. You promised to be in a friend’s wedding… on the other side of the country. So you pull out a card.
What You Can Do
The way I see it, having a card isn’t a problem, just like having a mortgage isn’t necessarily a problem. If you pay it off in full every month, having a card helps you build good credit for when you need it. The real problem is at the root of our society: we live beyond our means. It is rare to find anyone who doesn’t. Somehow, spending money you don’t have has become normal, average, common.
And that, to me, is the real issue with the situation. What we all need to do to dig ourselves out of debt is to change our very perspective of the world. Instead of asking, “Why shouldn’t I buy those shoes?” you should be asking yourself, “Why should I?” If your car breaks down, talk to the mechanic about a payment plan. Swallow your pride and carpool or get on a bus. Don’t buy a car just to keep up with your neighbors. Don’t buy a house that pushes you so close to the brink financially that you can’t even enjoy it.
Find happiness in your life, not in having the “best” anything on the block. I’m not saying you should, or can, avoid all debt. But we would all be better off if we thought long and hard before taking on a new debt.
Image by Izcool
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